Mail merge to a letter

You can use ChurchSuite to do a mail merge to Microsoft Word. This is useful when you want people's addresses printed directly onto a standard letter, perhaps with personalisation. Mail merge is also useful when printing labels.

ChurchSuite actually makes it easy to print labels without having to resort to mail merge, so we would recommend printing labels through ChurchSuite - see the separate article on "Printing labels through ChurchSuite".

In order to do a mail merge in MS Word, you need to have a merge file with your contact data in it. ChurchSuite provides this for you. However, in terms of the actual MailMerge process in MS Office, we recommend taking a look at the Microsoft support page.

In Section 2 you can optionally filter your contacts further - perhaps filtering contacts of a particular sex, or just those contacts who are parents (because they have linked children in the Children module. You can also filter by Custom Fields.

Scroll down to Section 3 and locate the shaded box that says "CSV" and select "Options". Here you can toggle between making a "Custom Selection" of fields to export to CSV, or to "Mail Merge". Choose "Mail Merge".

You can optionally include children's' first names in the output if you wish. When you are ready, select "Export to CSV".

Save the CSV file to your preferred location. The CSV file can easily be viewed in spreadsheet applications like MS Excel. You now have a merge file suitable for use with your preferred mail merge application.